Arse Bitten

Roads and Transport Minister Carl Scully has been asked to regulate the growing number of advertisements being ferried around the city or parked on the side of the road.

Parliamentary Secretary for Roads Tony Stewart has asked the minister to crack down on the industry to help close a loophole in local council regulations that allows billboards, some as large as semitrailers, to be placed along major roads and at busy intersections for up to four weeks at a time.

Mr Stewart, the MP for Bankstown, said towing billboards on trucks and trailers was slowing down traffic.

He is particularly concerned about billboards that cause safety hazards at intersections by blocking views of traffic.

“There are instances of ads for big fast food chains, finance companies and others plonked on the sides of roads or on private property without any permission from local councils,” he said.

Oooh, I like how it’s made all the more evil because of the terrible nature of the companies employing the advertising. That’s Sydney though.

In WA, the only organisation employing this particularly retarded method of advertising is the Road Safety Council, who particularly enjoy driving around in 8 ton trucks fitted with 20 foot billboards showing pictures of mangled corpses, with slogans like “Speed Kills” or “Don’t Drink and Drive”. Surprisingly, “Don’t drive around the CBD with a fucking huge photo of corpses, lest you distract or block the vision of other motorists” is yet to make an appearance.

Creating a traffic hazard in order to educate pedestrians on the risk of bad driving practices…. A necessary evil, or another example of WA’s commitment to setting new standards for retarded governance?